Prepare for a giant dose of childhood feels as the biggest reboot since Star Wars hits screens in July!

A renewal of Naoko Takeuchi’s magical girl hit, Sailor Moon is set to be simulcast worldwide in July, much to the delight of fans of the original anime.

The new anime, Sailor Moon Crystal will feature a storyline much closer to that of the original manga, breathing new life into the classic which introduced a generation to the anime genre.

The first official pictures have been released, depicting our heroine Usagi Tsukino and the four inner senshi in their scout sailor fuku and school uniforms (scroll to the end to see)! Like the plot, the character design will strongly mimic the manga art style.

Adding to our growing excitement is the confirmation of the principal cast: Sailor Moon’s original seiyuu, Kotono Mitsuishi, will reprise her role as Usagi Tsukino in the reboot. “I want to hurry up and meet moving Usagi again,” Mitsuishi says, as keen as anyone to see our favourite heroine return to the screen!

Toei Animation, the studio which brought us the first series, will retain production of the new show. For fans of the original ‘90s anime, the treats keep on coming!

Australian fans can look forward to a real treat — anime fans heading to Sydney’s popular SMASH! convention in August have the chance to meet Mitsuishi, who has been announced as a guest to the 2014 event.

The official Japanese site has been launched and updates will hopefully keep flowing in.

43 Cartoon Theme Songs, all played by the Ensemble ACJW from “The Academy”, a program of Carnegie Hall, The Julliard School, and the Well Music Institute in partnership with the New York City Department of Education

If you, like me, long ago grew tired of the turf wars between Ford and Holden enthusiasts, you can now safely take a neutral side.

Japanese car manufacturer Subaru has made ingenious use of makeup, prosthetics and green screen technology to bring to life the monsters of a popular anime for a television advertisment.

An actress is transformed into a titan for the Subaru commercial. Source

進撃の巨人 (‘Shingeki no Kyojin’; Attack on Titan) is the hit anime based on the manga of the same name, written by Hajime Isayama, in which humankind have been hunted to the brink of extinction by giant humanoid monsters called ‘titans’.

The thrilling series has been well-received by countless fans in Japan and internationally (including some of us here at Gay Geek)!

In the commercial, which went viral overnight, a shiny new car can be seen skillfully evading the grips of two titans which have appeared in the anime. It concludes with a dramatic focus on the iconic recurring monster in the series; the aptly-named Colossal Titan.

With rumours runningrampant of a live-action movie adaption, this commercial gives a glimpse of how titans might appear onscreen in a realistic, 3-dimensional portrayal!

Pokémon’s 6th generation of main series games is literally only days away and I am both excited and utterly demoralised since I promised myself to hold off on acquiring it for important personal reasons. However, I have been following the news and everything is so delicious. I’m kicking myself for making promises I don’t want to keep. There’s much about the new generation of Pokémon that has gotten me hyped and a few things that I am not so thrilled about but still interested enough to see how it works.

Things that I am so hyped for in the new generation:

Salons

Pokémon X & Y are introducing salons in some of the Kalos region’s cities. In these specialised locations there will be the option to change the appearance of your player character, causing him/her to appear different in battle animations and have a unique look in wi-fi matches. It’s still a couple of steps down from the kind of character creation that long-time fans have been anticipating but it’s a positive step forward. It also means that we can get rid of the stupid sunglasses. I hate the sunglasses. Seriously, who thought that was a good idea?

So much dress-up, so little time.

Furfrou

Its species name is “Poodle Pokémon” and it changes form by simply getting a haircut. Unlike other types of Pokémon forms where the Pokémon may be able to access different moves, change stats or even change type with a form change, Furfrou simply changes its appearance. Yep, it’s just a Pokémon poodle. And that is why I love and want it so much. You can choose between three different types of poodle-shape* and each has a dye job to go with it. For a person like me whom is so entertained by simple things like changing colours and shapes and sparkly things, I know I’m going to find this a lot of fun.

Four forms of FABULOUS!

Depowering the Steel-type (a bit)

Getting technical now, did you hate it whenever a Steel-type Pokémon appeared as an opponent in previous generations? Yeah, me too. They’re not as super-powered as the Dragon-type but they have so few weaknesses coupled with a great ton of resistances, including immunity to Poison-type attacks, and high average defence stats. It is so frustrating to take on a Steel-type Pokémon, even the ones where the massive resistance of the Steel-typing is offset by a second type. So for Generation VI, the Pokémon Team have changed the type pairings a bit. Obviously they had to change them anyway to include the Fairy-type but they have also taken away Steel-type’s resistance to Dark- and Ghost-types, which makes a lot of sense and I am totally cool with it since I quite like the Dark-type. And like I said, fighting against at literal steel wall when so few of your attacks will do more than half the regular damage is really frustrating. I’d rather see defensive play being mixed up by adding more moves to the pool rather than more resistances to certains types.

I did, I said it!

Skates

‘Since you’re able to run right from the get-go in these games, there’s a new item you’ll be able to get that allows you to go even faster. As an enthusiastic roller-blader in my childhood, I am certain to identify strongly with this new element. I don’t know if I’ll ever not use them. Screw the bicycle, skates are where it’s at in this game.

Things that I am not so hyped for in the new generation:

Fairy-type

This seems to me a pointless addition to make to the list of types. Everyone initially got super excited because ever since the introduction of the Dark-type fans have been speculating the creation of a corresponding “Light-type” and Fairy seems to be filling that niche. However, what got a lot of appetites wet for Fairy-type was the fact that it’s super-effective against Dragon-type and additionally is not affected by Dragon-type moves. Dragon-type Pokémon have long been revered for being powerful and having few weaknesses. If I had to spend hours in tall grass trying to catch a super-rare Pokémon and even more hours raising it to level 50 to get its fully evolved form, I think I deserve a very powerful Pokémon, thank-you very much.

This seems like a much needed move to depower the Dragon-type generally but when you take a step back it’s a pretty moot move. Despite having few weaknesses Dragon-type also has few strengths. Offensively, their moves are only super-effective against themselves and aside from Fairy, Steel is the only type that they’re not neutral to. Defensively, they take double damage from Ice-type (and now Fairy-type), as well as themselves and half damage from Water, Fire, Grass and Electric, making them neutral to everything else. The biggest threat a Dragon-type Pokémon possesses is high stats so I don’t think this addition to the typing categories is really well worth the hype just yet. More so since aside from its battle properties we still don’t know about the growth rate or the average base stats of Fairy-type.

Meowstic

It’s a Psychic-type Pokémon that has a drastically different appearance based on whether it is male or female. It also has different move pools based on its gender with the female’s being more aggressive and the male’s being more supportive. It would have been less offensive to just make them two different Pokémon. Meowstic takes gender alienation in Pokémon to a new level of dumb, up from the different designs of various accessories depending on your character’s gender from Generation IV onwards. Here’s a clue: for each accessory there was actually only one design but they came in different colours. And of course you couldn’t just choose your colour; girls were automatically assigned pink and for boys, blue. I can deal with the theme of sexual dimorphism that Pokémon has been going for ever since they introduced breeding but segregating this Pokémon so far that each gender has different move sets based on their sex is taking that too far. Can’t people just accept that boys and girls can do everything the other can do?

Lovely designs but don’t go too hard on the sexual dimorphism.

Mega-evolution

So far Mega-evolution seems to be one of the coolest things this generation has to offer and I can understand that. The designs for many of the megas look really cool and it shakes up the game strategy a lot but I am just not hyped. Mainly because this whole temporary evolution schtick has been Digimon’s s domain since 1999. I was a fan of both of them as a child but Pokémon eventually stole my heart away completely with its unexplored lands of wonder, beauty and mystery over the digital world’s wondrously confusing topsy-turvy Wonderland-ish world. One of the major things that really separated the Pokémon from the Digimon was the fact that Pokémon evolved permanently and without much assistance from an external device** while Digimon did not. In my mind that is still one of the most important distinctions between them. Mega-evolution is cool but from my perspective it just seems like they’re starting to step on Digimon’s toes now. The reason why I like Pokémon is because it’s not Digimon and Digimon is great because it’s a viable alternative to Pokémon that is not another Pokémon thing (like Pokémon Conquest – totally viable alternative to the Pokémon main series but it’s still Pokémon).

Blaziken, Digivolve into–wait a minute!

That’s really just a gripe, though. It would be cool to instantly be able to boost all of your stats in a single move and even change type to get some strategic advantage. Then again, there may turn out to be more advantage in equipping some other sort of item over the mega-stone, like a berry (never underestimate those rare berries; Charti Berry lets me breathe a little easier in the face of Stealth Rock***) or even a focus band for the sake of getting in just one more hit, or maybe it’ll be more worth it to use a Mystic Water or other kind of item to raise the power of certain attacks, especially attacks that your Pokémon already gets a STAB from. See, I’m already questioning the usual plan of attack. An interesting way to shake up the battling but why did it have to wriggle into the Digimon niche?

All things considered, I love Pokémon and I can’t wait for the fateful day when I have fulfilled my promise and Pokémon X sits snugly in my 3DS and shines its glorious digital light upon my visage.

I’m not gonna lie, this is exactly what my face looks like when I play games.

*‘Poodle-shape’ is a general term to describe the shapes that poodles are trimmed into and it’s a totally legitimate way to describe things. Totally.

**Just to be clear, I am aware of all of the Pokémon that need to be holding items or have items used on them in order to evolve but Mega-evolution takes the further step of the trainer needing to hold a special item that will consistently trigger Mega-evolution. You know, like how the DigiDestined kids needed to be holding Digivices to consistently trigger Digivolution.

You know why I’m super excited for the 12th of October? Pokémon X and Y!!!

You know why I’m super sad? Because I have a Real Life responsibilities around the same time to contend with the time I would have been spending playing this brand new awesomeness.

In waiting for the new guys to come along, I guess it’s back to these guys.

In the meantime, there’s the newly released OVA that I can use to procrastinate with reckless abandon, Pokémon: The Origin. It’s already been aired and subtitled and the first episode really sets the mood. You’ve probably already seen this clip of Charmander screaming continuously as Squirtle mercilessly unleashes Bite attack on it.

It’s absolutely distressing. With this clip it’s clear to see that Pokémon is going down some dark, dark roads. I haven’t seen Pokémon get this hardcore since the Pokémon Adventures manga. It’s terrifying, it’s disturbing, it’s violent, it’s horrific and I like it! Give me MOAR!!

In terms of news, this is really old. I mean really, really, REALLY old. However, I thought I might bring it up since nobody seems to talk about it, not even the fans. So the two pages you’re about to read are from a manga called Kuroshitsuji (Black Butler) and is a character guide for the officially confirmed second most powerful being in the entire story (it’s a manga, so read from right to left):

I just find it really interesting that despite the existence of this in canon (it can be considered canon since it’s from the manga-ka and it reveals some key aspects of the character as Yana Toboso designed her) fans of this anime/manga universally and unanimously identify Grell as male. Shipping between Grell and the male characters is categorised as yaoi/BL despite the fact that it’s technically heterosexual and her relationship with Madame Red is either ignored or classified as het despite actually being homosexual.

One of the most common reasons I’ve heard for this is that Grell’s trans identity isn’t prominently brought out in the story as part of the plot or even part of a sub-plot but does it have to be??? The way the Kuroshitsuji fandom seems to rationalising this is as such: nothing is absolutely, explicitly stated in the canon storyline since it’s not a massive deal plot-wise, so the fans are all confused and still mostly think that Grell Sutcliff is a cisgender, gay man. Seriously fandom? SERIOUSLY??? Yana Toboso has literally done everything she can in the main story to show the readers that Grell is trans*, from using feminine Japanese (read this article from Tofugu if you need to know more about that) to having Grell state several times that she wants to “be a maiden”. Everything except explicitly say that Grell is transgender. Thankfully the fandom seems to be generally okay with accepting that Grell is bisexual, yet frequently ignore the “bi” part of “bisexual”. Like Grell’s gender identity, Yana Toboso did everything to prove that Grell is bisexual, this time including a few lines where Grell explicitly states that she is bisexual.

This is one of the biggest reasons why Grell is my favourite character in Kuroshitsuji. She’s loud and proud about her bisexuality and gender identity. In an anime/manga that is absolutely full of effeminate-looking characters, Grell is a few steps above and beyond simply being effeminate – she does her very best to express her true gender despite her biology and is an upbeat, vibrant figure in an otherwise gloomy cast of angsty characters.

I honestly do not know what to think about this fandom’s response to having a trans* character in their canon. Is it because Japan and the Western world both have a very stringent view of sexuality that isn’t very kind to trans* people? Or do people in society still not like the idea of trans* people in general? Or perhaps it’s just because the Kuroshitsuji fandom is extremely problematic on a general level? (See: this Tumblr blog.)

Basically, I just wanted to put this up here now to show people that there is an admittedly excellent work of fiction out there where a trans* person is a main character who often helps to significantly drive the plot and who is actually one of the most powerful characters in the cast (Toboso stated that Grell is the second most powerful after the main character, Sebastian Michaelis). I don’t want people to continue to ignore her trans* identity. It’s a really important part of her character.

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